Briarpatch Magazine

November/December 2025: The labour issue Workplace drug policy is hurting workers and unions can do more. Plus: lessons from a harm reduction union, solidarity with incarcerated workers, sewing solidarity in Winnipeg, rural unionism, and more. Cover art by Amanda Priebe.

📢 Our labour issue is out now and ready to order!

Featuring: pushing against harmful drug policy, rural unionism, garment worker wins, a reading list, and more

Cover art by Amanda Priebe

We are SUPER EXCITED to welcome IndigiNews to the UNRIGGED journalism community joining @independentnl.bsky.social @ricochetmedia.bsky.social @briarpatchmag.bsky.social @pressprogress.ca @pivot.quebec + 27 other independent publishers across the (so-called) country!

Find out more at unrigged.ca💫

Briarpatch’s Annual General Meeting Interested in being on the Briarpatch board of directors, or peeking behind the scenes of our beloved magazine? Come to Briarpatch’s Annual General Meeting!

Our AGM is coming up on Monday October 20!
4:30 p.m. PST/5:30 p.m. CST/MDT and 7:30p.m. EST
Come find out what we've been up to and/or put yourself up for a position on our board! Registration is required to receive the link for the meeting. briarpatchmagazine.com/agm Hope to see you soon!

Writing in the Margins is back! Submit your creative non-fiction, poetry, and photography that on social and environmental justice for a chance to win $500 and publication in Briarpatch.

Contest ends November 28th 2025. Learn more about the contest here: briarpatchmagazine.c...

September/October 2025: “We are not made of steel” Since 1973, Briarpatch has been serving up regular doses of news and analysis from its home in Regina, Saskatchewan. Believing that a truly free press is essential to the creation of a truly democratic society, Briarpatch provides a thoughtful, principled, and irreverent alternative to the false consensus of the corporate media.

📢 Our September/October issue is out!

Featuring: the psychological toll of war reporting in Gaza. Plus: university interference in Nova Scotia, degrowth debate, and more.

🎨 cover illustration by Ibrahim Abusitta

Link below to order your copy!

Lessons from the cultural front No Arms in the Arts organizers look back on over a year of confronting cultural institutions complicit in Palestinian genocide

In our Jul/Aug 2025 cover story, Aliya Pabani and Jody Chan reflect on the lessons they've learned through organizing with No Arms in the Arts for over a year and the importance of continuing to organize within the cultural sector for a free Palestine.

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Food too expensive? It’s time for public grocery stores City-run stores could be an affordable alternative to large, corporate grocery chains

Zohran Mamdani is promising to bring public grocery stores to New York City. To combat the grocery oligopoly in Canada, @nolore.bsky.social contends, we need the same.

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At this stage in Israel's genocide of Palestinians, Anna Lippman questions the need to lend legitimacy to Palestinian resistance on the basis of anti-Zionist Jewish identity.

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I have an article in this issue of Briarpatch arguing for public grocery stores.

I wrote it months ago, back before I had even heard of Zohran Mamdani, but I did try to get an interview with him for the piece!

Fighting for prime farmland in Wilmot Wilmot Township’s farmers are resisting land expropriation and corporate power

Farmers in Wilmot Township are facing land expropriation and no one is willing to tell them why. Ally Krueger-Kischak writes about their fight and the intricacies of rural agricultural expropriation.

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No longer exists, Ein Samiya (2021) Writing in the Margins 2024 poetry honourable mention

Jenan Afaneh's photo essay consolidates the relationship between people, memory, and place, resisting the erasure of Ein Samiya.

This piece was the honourable mention for the photography category (judged by Annie Sakkab) of our 2024 WITM contest.

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To remember is to look around Tamil-Canadian settlerhood and the politics of remembrance – When our grief is framed as proof of the West’s benevolence, we must ask: what does it mean to derive our legitimacy from the very systems that displaced us? 

Ambihai Akilan explores the politics of mourning, the precarity of state legitimization, and the need for settler solidarity with Indigenous communities.

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July/August 2025: Lessons from the cultural front Since 1973, Briarpatch has been serving up regular doses of news and analysis from its home in Regina, Saskatchewan. Believing that a truly free press is essential to the creation of a truly democratic society, Briarpatch provides a thoughtful, principled, and irreverent alternative to the false consensus of the corporate media.

📢 Our July/August issue is out now!

Featuring reflections from No Arms in the Arts campaign, a case for public grocers, rethinking free trade and more.

🎨 cover design by Gudrun Wai-Gunnarsson; photos by Yuula Benivolski

Link below to order your copy!

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Last day to submit your pitches!

If you're in Ottawa this weekend, come find us at the Ottawa Anarchist Bookfair!

How to build a mobile free store A guide to neighbourhood redistribution

Madeline Berger has been involved with Distro Disco since 2021. They put together a practical guide to neighbourhood redistribution for others who want to start a distro in their community.

Read it here:

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Call for pitches: 2025 Labour Issue Every year, for our November/December issue, Briarpatch publishes an issue devoted to reporting stories about the labour movement. This year, we’re looking for articles, investigative reporting, historical analysis, photo essays, timelines, personal essays, reviews, profiles, recommendations, lists, humour, comics, and art for the issue.

📢 Briarpatch is now accepting pitches for our annual Labour Issue. Find a list of suggested pitches (non-exhaustive), guidelines on how to pitch us, and more details at the link below! Pitch deadline is July 7, 2025.

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Understanding fascism: a reading list A reading list on understanding fascism as a key feature of capitalist liberal nation-states

As we see the rise in fascism globally, ‪‪@harshawalia.bsky.social‬ 's reading list helps us make sense of how fascism operates as a consistent feature of capitalist liberal nation-states.

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Catch us in Calgary this weekend!

Nationalism will not save us In response to tariff threats by the U.S., the resurgence of Canadian nationalism gives cover for punitive im/migration and drug policies

In response to tariff threats by the U.S., there has been a resurgence of Canadian nationalism. However, Jasmine Veark writes, this renewed nationalism gives cover to punitive im/migration and drug policies.

Read here
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Becoming boundless: The Hampton Hub and the legacy of Black Prairie resistance Drawing on Black anti-fascist traditions and cultivating coalitional networks of care, the Hampton Hub modelled an ethics of abundance on the Prairies

Savannah Kosteniuk honours the ways in which the Hampton Hub (2022-2025) drew on Black anti-fascist traditions and cultivated coalitional networks of care, modelling an ethics of abundance on the Prairies.

Read now
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Co-Resisting Anti-Palestinian Racism in Toronto Schools Jewish and Palestinian families are combatting polarizing policies together

Toronto Palestinian Families and Toronto Jewish Families are trying to combat anti-Palestinian racism from the Toronto District School Board, Marlee Wasser writes.

Read here
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Understanding Zionism’s fissures Internal implosions within the Zionist state are leading to its fractures

"For Palestinians, Zionism cannot be leftward or rightward. Zionism means we die."

From the author who wrote an exceptional piece on contextualizing Palestinian resistance for our Sept/Oct 2024 issue, this piece breaks down the fallibility of empire.

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#51: Red Flags: A Reckoning with Communism for the Future of the Left, w/ David Camfield Red Flags: A Reckoning with Communism for the Future of the Left, w/ David Camfield . . . Host as guest! Guest host Saima Desai interviews David about his new book, Red Flags. . . If you listen to the

As a bonus, check out former Briarpatch editor
@desaima.bsky.social's interview with David about Red Flags on his podcast Victor's Children (and maybe get a discount code)

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The ‘Communist’ world is not communist and the ‘Free’ world is not free An excerpt adapted from chapter one of Red Flags: A Reckoning With Communism for the Future of the Left

Longtime Briarpatch contributor David Camfield has published a sharp anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian examination of the history of actually existing socialist societies through Fernwood Publishing.

Read the adapted excerpt below
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Writing our community’s wrongs Reckoning with journalism’s role and responsibility in trans genocides past and present

@celeste.lgbt and @shewhoserenades.bsky.social reckon with journalism's role in trans genocides past and present.

Art by Cee Lavery.

Read at the link below!

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May/June 2025 The Hampton Hub and the legacy of Black Prairie radicalism. Plus: A reading list on understanding fascism, how to build a mobile free store, journalism's role in trans genocides past and present, nationalism will not save us, and more. Cover art by Anna Binta Diallo.

📢 Our May/June issue is headed to your doorsteps!

Featuring The Hampton Hub and the legacy of Black Prairie radicalism, understanding fascism, how nationalism will not save us, and more!

🎨 cover by Anna Binta Diallo

Link below to order your copy!

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Big congratulations to @teneilewarren.bsky.social on being recognized for their unique storytelling by @canadamediaawards.bsky.social homed in our Black Radicalism Special Issue!

Read their piece here:
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This article by Yi Chien Jade Ho in the Jan/Feb issue of @briarpatchmag.bsky.social is outstanding!

Canada’s little-known anti-socialist internment camps While Canada committed itself to anti-fascism on the world stage in the 1940s, its government was showing its contradictions internally

While Canada committed itself to anti-fascism on the world stage in the 1940s, its government was showing its contradictions internally, Owen Schalk details.

Art by Kumé Pather.

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